No Going Back
by Seeria Nix
Summary: Troy and Gabriella decide to try mountain climbing, but when something goes wrong and Troy and Gabriella's lives hang in the balance, how far will Troy go to save her? Oneshot to prove Troy's love for Gabriella!


Well, since my computer messed up, and all that I can do is submit new stories, I have decided to write this idea down that has been nagging at me forever. Here it is!

P.S. An ascender is a small hand-held piece that you use to climb up a rope while moutain climbing in cause of an accident. Otherwise, you either do it by yourself, or have someone belay you.

For those who know what it is, good for you. For those who don't just use your immaganation!

**I do not know much about moutin climbing, so some of this I am making up. Please do not be mad!**

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Troy grasped the rope tightly. He could see it,itwas ready to come undone. Grabbing his ascender, he attached it and started climbing to where Gabriella was holding onto the rope, her hands were beginning to slip, and her waist rope was detached. Pushing the yellow attachment further up, Troy finally reached where Gabriella was at. 

"Gabriella, please listen to me. The rope is going to give out. I have to retie it to yourharness. After I have done that, I need you to put all of the weight you can on the cliff. Once we have gotten rid of some of the strain on the rope, it might be enough to get us up one at a time. You go first." He reached to the side of the cliff, grabbing onto a slightly tighter rock and pressing his weight into it, reliving some of the pressure on the rope. Gabriella took a deep breath and took Troy's hand in one of hers and used the other to retie her rope around her waist. After she had it into a double eight knot, she did as Troy said and grabbed onto a rock on the wall. Troy switched the assender to Gabriella's belt and handed her the two hand held pieces that she would use to push herself further up.

The rope gave a sudden lurch,causingGabriella to fall about ten feet, jerking Troy off of the small legde he was standing on and plunging him twenty feel below where Gabriella was on the rope. Troy frantically tried to get his grip back on the rope as Gabriella used the ascender to hold herself up. After regaining his balance and grip, Troy looked up, then back down. The rope was quickly giving away, and he knew it was not going to last long. He knew it would be able to support one person for long enough to get up. But that was the only problem. It would only hold one.

"Gabriella!" He called up. She looked down at him, clearly worried. "When I say so, start climbing up the rope as fast as you can. Don't look back." He held the release button on his harness. It would only take a split second to untie it and give Gabriella the time she needed to get up.

"Troy...no..." She knew what he was going to do. She didn't want him sacrificing himself to save her. "Troy! We can make it up. Please, don't..."

"Gabriella, this is the only way. It _has _to be done. I can't wait here when there is a way for you to survive. If I made it out of this, knowing I had let you die on the offchance that we could both get out of this, I would die, I couldn't live like that. Gabriella, let me do this." He looked her straight in the eye. Knowing it would probably be the last time he ever got to speak to her he said what he had been meaning to say for the past two years.

"I love you." Troy let go of the rope he had untiedseconds earlier so he could save Gabriella's life.

_Earlier that day_

_Gabriella smiled brightly at Troy as they started walking out of the lodge. They were there again, for the third year in a row. It had been three years since the slightly annoying man had shoved them up on the stagem to sing, changing both of their lives forever. Both years afterwards, they had come back. Actually, the first year back,the man, who's name was Johnathan,was still working there, and they had thanked him._

_Troy smiled back at Gabriella and hoisted his big backpack onto his shoulders. It was full of climbing gear. This year, instead of snowboarding, they had decided on moutain climbing. Their parents didn't want to do anything, so they stayed inside the lodge. Chad and Taylor, who they had taken along, were skiing._

_"So, where is the moutain we will be climbing?" She asked. They had been going to moutain climbing classes since summer, planning for this all year long. They wern't doing anything huge, just mildly big._

_"Um...about two miles from here. Oh, and we have to walk." Gabriella put on a fake pout, but started running up the hill._

_"Is that a challange?" Troy ran after her. Before they knew it, they had arrived at the moutain. They werre both gasping, and stopped a minute to catch their breath. Gabriella stuck her head over the edge of the cliff, looking below. Troy started to put on his harness, tying his rope around his waist and hammering his first (Please tell me what they are called. They look like ice picks, but are not, I am going to call them something else until I know the name) pick into the wall, attaching the rope and making sure it would hold. He turned to Gabriella, who was looking slightly nervous._

_"Troy, are you sure this is safe?"_

_"Sure I'm sure. Come on, if anything goes wrong, I will help you. I won't let anything happen." He smiled resaurringly at her, which calmed her a little, but not totally. They started up, pausing every few feet to nail another pick into the wall to hold them up, rotating their five clasps between picks, taking the picksout when they were past that part so they could reuse them._

_"Troy, why do we have to stop so much? How about every ten feet?"_

_"The reason is because if one of the picks does not hold, or breaks, we will not fall very far, and there is less of a chance of us dying if there is a domino effect and a lot of the picks come lose." This did not help Gabriella in the slightest._

_"So we might die?" Going pale, she stopped. They were almost thirty feet in the air._

_"Gabriella, don't look down. And no, I won't let you die. Don't worry." They started again, Gabriella making sure to pound the picks in extra hard. They were seventy feet up before signs of trouble started._

_"Troy, I think one of my picks are lose." Troy immedatly tied his rope around a small tree that was sticking out from the cliff edge. Lowering himself to Gabriella's level, he checked over her gear piece by piece. Most of the picks were in tightly, some of them a little lose, but not too much. Going further down, he pulled on two more before thethird one came out right in his hand. Hoping it was far enough down not to cause any trouble, he ignored it and went back up to Gabriella._

_"OK. You are rotating your five clasps, right? So not to use one too much?" Gabriella nodded. "And you are checking your rope every ten feet?" She nodded again, leaning back and resting her weight on the rope. Suddenly one of the clasps gave out, making Gabriella drop three feet. Troy gasped and lowered himself, but before he could get eye level with her, another one snapped, then another one. The forth one went and Troy quicklylet go of his ropes,thethck nylon running quickly through the clasps. Dropping at an alarming rate, he finally came level with Gabriella and grabbed the rope to stop himself._

_"Gabriella, hold onto my rope! I am going to disconnect you, and we are going to get down from here." She nodded and grabbed Troy's rope. He unhooked her rope and it fell to the ground, the last clasp out of place. His rope inched down a few places. An idea coming to him, he punched the wall as hard as he could. It crumbled beneth his hand. _

_"Oh, crap." Suddenly glad that he had tied his rope around the tree, he started making his way back up to Gabriella. She was scared, hanging tightly onto the rope, for she had not connected hers yet. Before he reached her, Troy's clasps started giving out. It must be the extra weigt, Troy thought. It was fine when it was just him because the tree was relieving most of the strain on the clasps, which were in the crumbling wall. But with the combined weight of Gabriella, the tree was going to give out, and soon.Troy weighed his options carefully. If he started climbing, that would put greater pressure on the rope. If he stayed where he was, there was a chance it would hold. Looking down, he realized that he was alomst fifty feet in the air._

_"Gabriella, can you find anything to hold onto?"_

_"No! Troy, help! I can't hold on much longer!"He decided t risk it. He needed to get to Gabriella and help tieher rope. If he didn't, she was going to fall. Troy grasped the rope tightly, he could see it, it was ready to come undone..._

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Well, there you go. Oh, and incase you didn't know, the last part is exactly like the first. **This is a just a one-shot** to prove Troy's love for Gabriella. I might, sometime n the future, add more, but I do not know. 


End file.
